Easter Meats & Easter Treats

Why do we have chocolate Easter bunnies and eggs, marshmallow chicks in pastel colors, and jelly beans at Easter?

Let's look at the meaning of food as a symbol to understand its spiritual significance.

The ancients believed that by eating something we somehow take on its characteristics, its power. This formed the basis for the earliest pre-meal "blessings" (which were simple 'thank-you's' to the animal/plant/earth that were a way to honor the life that had been sacrificed so that we as humans could enjoy life too). This too is the basic meaning for the more recent Christian sacrament of communion.

So . . . simply put, making Easter eggs and bunnies out of candy to celebrate the spring festival for the goddess Ostara was a way to incorporate the symbols of the goddess and the season while laying claim to her strengths of vitality, growth, and fertility for ourselves.

Why is ham a traditional Easter meat?

Just a theory, you understand:

Though some might argue that ham is served at Easter since it is a "Christian" meat, (prohibited by the religious laws of Judaism and Islam), the origin probably lies instead in the early practices of the pagans of Northern Europe.

Having slaughtered and preserved the meat of their agricultural animals the previous fall as part of the Blood Moon celebrations so they would have food supplies during the winter months, pagans would celebrate the arrival of spring by using up the last of the cured meats that remained.

Where did the practice of 'giving up a food' for Lent come from?

Anticipating the arrival of spring and the plants and wildlife that would provide abundant food, many pagans would begin fasting at the time of the vernal equinox to clear the "poisons" (and excess weight) produced by the heavier meals that had been stored in their bodies over the winter months.

One can't help but wonder if this practice might have been the predecessor of "giving up" foods during the Lenten season. Some suggest that the purpose of fasting may have been to create a pleasant state of "altered consciousness" in time for the spring festivals.

*Note: Such a state can occur during extended or severe weight loss. In medical terms its known as ketosis. Layman's term for it is 'brain fuzz'.

Goddess Gift